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SMS – The Mobile Marketing Road Less Traveled

When talking about digital marketing strategies today’s marketer would be completely remiss if he were not incorporating mobile best practices. Consider this – according to mobithinking, there are almost 6 Billion mobile cellular subscriptions globally – the global population is now estimated at just over 7 Billion. IDC estimates that by 2015 more US broadband users will access the internet on a mobile device than on a PC-based/wired device.

So we do what we must. We optimize our email messages and shorten our headlines. We design our websites with mobile devices in mind, we create mobile apps and sites, microsites and location based mobile campaigns. We develop social media campaigns and tactics and still we butt up against the inevitable truth – we are contributing to a vast and growing tide of information aimed at the consumer who has no qualms about throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Enter “Narrowcasting.” The idea here is to deliver highly relevant messaging to a hyper-targeted group of recipients using one of the less talked about media – SMS messaging. Check out this infographic which was released by mogreet and has some really interesting statistics about mobile/SMS usage and response rates. While I personally wouldn’t recommend adopting SMS as a way to advertise in general (I as a mobile user would completely rebel against a company who was spamming me…) I must admit I wouldn’t resent receiving the odd SMS-based coupon to a nearby restaurant or store as I was walking around downtown… What do you think? Is SMS open territory for advertisers or should it be left sacred for personal communication?

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